Karel Vošalík

“For [completing - trans.] big jobs, we received leave, they lent us a leave uniform, otherwise we were constantly guarded behind walls. To begin with we were guarded by the interior guards, they had purple shoulder marks. They guarded us with assault rifles and watched us slave away, and they said: ‘We’d gladly help you out so you wouldn’t have so much work to do, but we mustn’t touch anything. We have to guard you so you don’t run away.’ Then they got rid of it. [...] When we’d had enough, we’d break one another’s pickaxe and go to get new ones. The new pickaxes and spades were at a place a long way away, we’d walk an hour there and an hour back. So we’d skip work for two hours.”

“Every plane had a bomb under its wing. They attacked the train station in Dobřichovice. All those bombs landed next to the Dobřichovice station. They all fell into the fields. [...] He wasn’t able to drop one of the bombs, so he flew around until the bomb fell off over Vráž [a part of Mokropsy - ed.]. We were just on our way to school, that was in March 1945. [...] Suddenly, we see him drop the bomb, so we laid flat, and the bomb fell on the road. [...] Old Makoň was taking his grandsons by cart, they copped it. Those were the only victims. [...] Lessons were cancelled from then on.”